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                    ||                       How beautiful on the mountains
                    ||                       are the feet of those ... who
                    ||                       proclaim salvation, who say to
                                             Zion, "Your God reigns!"
          Pastor RALPH & GENE ANN WOOD                  --Isaiah 52:7 (NIV)
          E-mail:  randg.wood@encode.com
          FRESH MANNA, 03/03/1998 .......................... 2 TIMOTHY 4:13
          The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest,
          bring [with thee], and the books [/scrolls], [but] especially the
          parchments.   --2 TIMOTHY 4:13 (KJV)
             Paul was in a tense situation.  He was in jail, his supporters
          had deserted him; he was expecting this imprisonment to end with
          his death as a martyr for Christ.  So, what did he send for?  His
          cloak, to be sure, so he'd be warmer in the wintry jail.  But, he
          also asked for his books, or scrolls, especially his parchments.
          "Situation tense:  bring books!"  Unusual request, for a vigorous
          man of action, you'd think?  Maybe.  Calvin says this:--
            "It is evident from this, that the apostle had not given over
            reading, though he was already preparing for death.  Where are
            those who think that they have made so great progress that they
            do not need any more exercise?  Which of them will dare to
            compare himself with Paul?  Still more does this expression
            refute the madness of those men who-- despising books, and
            condemning all reading-- boast of nothing but their own divine
            inspirations.  But let us know that this passage gives to all
            believers a recommendation of constant reading, that they may
            profit by it."
             Barclay thinks the scrolls could be early gospel writings; and
          the parchments, likely Old Testament Scriptures.  He says:--
            "It was the word of Jesus and the word of God that Paul wanted
            most of all, when he lay in prison awaiting death. / Sometimes
            history has a strange way of repeating itself.  Fifteen hundred
            years later William Tyndale was lying in prison in Vilvorde,
            waiting for death because he had dared to give the people the
            Bible in their own language.  It is a cold damp winter, and he
            writes to a friend:  `Send me, for Jesus' sake, a warmer cap,
            something to patch my leggings, a woollen shirt, and above all
            my Hebrew Bible.'  When they were up against it and the chill
            breath of death was on them, the great ones wanted more than
            anything else the word of God to put strength and courage into
            their souls."
             Hmm.  If the last thing the apostle Paul, and William Tyndale
          sent for, in such situations, was the Bible-- maybe we who think
          we have that much more time, should seek it out, also!   --RLW
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